2004:October

“A man went into a restaurant, ordered penguin soup, tasted it, went home, and killed himself,” so starts the lateral thinking puzzle that kept us busy for two hours at Eileen’s get-together party last Saturday.

Celestia is definitely one of the best open-source software that I have ever tried. I followed the link to this software via Dave. Celestia is a 3D-based simulation of outer space. You can explore the solar system, go to the nearest stars, and see in three dimensions the arrangement of the Local Group of Galaxies (which includes the Milky Way, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, and the Andromeda Galaxy).

Several weeks ago, my officemates and I had a discussion on the question, “do you get wetter walking or running in the rain?” My guess is that the walker gets more wet, primarily because he spends more time in the rain. But intuitively, you could also say that the runner gets more wet because he is running into rain, rain that would not hit you if you were walking more slowly.

I was eating a heavy Jollibee dinner last night in Makati when I felt a bit dizzy (my inner ears tell me that I moved, but my eyes tell me I didn’t). I thought Renz, who stood up at that exact moment, pushed my chair or something, except that I was very sure that he didn’t push it at all. Of course it was just the earthquake[Phivolcs].

If you only see question marks or boxes in the title, then you need to install East Asian language support in your browser. You also need some Unicode fonts. After that, you should be able to see some Japanese characters.

I guess a lot of motorists in Metro Manila now know about the new ticketing system implemented by the MMDA centered on their Metropolitan Traffic Ticket (MTT). Now MMDA officers will no longer confiscate drivers’ licenses and drivers will no longer waste hours going to specific MMDA redemption centers to pay the fines and retrieve their licenses. Instead, drivers can pay their fines at any Metrobank branch within seven days of the ticket’s issuance.

That font is the culprit that’s been bugging my blog. I’m using Lucida Sans as my blog’s default HTML body font. Verdana, while more widely available, has become too common on the web, so I wanted another widely available font that’s not Verdana nor Arial. That’s how I settled on Lucida Sans.

My current song of the week is Freestyle’s “Once in a Lifetime”, coming from the recently released album of the same name. I don’t know but I have fallen in love with this song. The lyrics are great, the melody is oh so wonderful, and I feel as if the singer is pouring his heart out into it.